Singapore Customs issued a Dec. 19 circular about its upgraded free trade agreement with China (see 1910210033) and the deal’s rules of origin provisions, which will take effect Jan. 1, 2020. The circular outlines “key changes” to the rules for Singapore’s exports to China, including an expansion to the list of “Product Specific Rules,” updated criteria for determining the origin of products, information on submissions of manufacturing cost statements to qualify certain products for the Product Specific Rules and more.
Exports to China
In the Dec. 19-20 editions of the Official Journal of the European Union the following trade-related notices were posted:
Recent editions of Mexico's Diario Oficial list trade-related notices as follows:
U.S. companies and exporters have not told the Trump administration that sanctions on Venezuela are hurting their business, according to Elliott Abrams, the State Department’s special representative for Venezuela. As the U.S. continues one of its most active sanctions regimes (see 1911190028) against a country it says is marred by corruption and human rights abuses, companies are becoming more understanding of U.S. foreign policy goals, Abrams said.
The government of Canada issued the following trade-related notices as of Dec. 20 (note that some may also be given separate headlines):
The U.S. sanctions bill against Russia’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline may not have the chilling effect that lawmakers expect, trade experts said. The U.S. should introduce export controls to bolster the sanctions, the experts said, but those restrictions may be too late because the Russia-Germany pipeline is nearing completion. The bill also may disproportionately sanction German businesses involved in the project instead of the real target, they said, which is Russia.
China released another round of tariff exemptions for certain U.S. imports, according to an unofficial translation of a Dec. 19 notice from China’s State Council Customs Tariff Commission. The waivers will be granted from Dec. 26, 2019, through Dec. 25, 2020, and will include six chemical and oil products, including certain lubricating oils; “adhesive” items; wax; polyethylene; a linear low-density polyethylene; and polypropylene, China said. Tariffs already levied on these imports will not be refunded, according to a Dec. 19 report from Xinhua, China’s state-run news agency. China previously announced tariff exemptions for 16 U.S. goods (see 1909110051), later adding pork and soybeans (see 1909130013). Xinhua said the commission is continuing to “work on the exemption process” and will release “the exemption lists of U.S. goods subject to the second round of additional tariffs in due course.”
The U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement passed in the House of Representatives with a vote of 385-41, with all but two Republicans and 193 Democrats voting yes. This was the biggest vote for a free trade deal in the House since the Canada Free Trade agreement in 1988, and many of the top Democrats in the House say it will serve as a template for future trade deals. It was a far more resounding “yes” than the original NAFTA vote of 234-200, when just 102 Democrats voted yes.
The U.S. pork industry expects phase one of the U.S.-China trade deal to be a boon to pork exporters, although the industry has not been told exactly how much they will benefit, the National Pork Producers Council said. “The administration hasn't been sharing the details,” Nick Giordano, the NPPC’s vice president of global government affairs, said during a Dec. 18 call with reporters. “But our understanding is that it’s going to be very good for us.”
The World Trade Organization may have its first answer to what happens when a party appeals and there's no appellate body to resolve the dispute. The U.S., which killed the appellate body by not agreeing to appoint any replacements, is appealing a compliance report for a case in which India won the argument that the U.S. antidumping and countervailing case against Indian steel didn't fully follow trade law (see 14081205 and 1706090021).